There were chaotic scenes as the feverish march got underway before dawn following an open-air mass for the so-called Black Nazarene statue in a seaside park in Manila. 

Many Filipinos believe the icon has miraculous healing powers and that touching it, or the ropes attached to its float, can heal previously incurable ailments and bring good fortune to them and their loved ones.

“I believe that the Nazarene will give what we are all praying for — we just have to wait, but he will give everything,” Renelinda de Leon, 64, told AFP at the start of the procession. 

“He gave me good health. I don’t have an illness, I’m always healthy.”

As a light rain fell over the massive crowd, some barefoot devotees risked injury to reach the float by clambering over others and clinging to the clothes of guards protecting the icon, causing some to fall.

Other guards on the float pushed unruly devotees to the ground to keep them away from the icon enclosed in a glass case and allow the parade to continue on its journey of several kilometres. 

More than 15,000 security and medical personnel have been deployed along the route of the procession. 

At one point, organisers estimated just over a million people were marching slowly towards the destination of Quiapo Church. 

It is the first time the traditional parade featuring the life-sized statue has been held since 2020, after Covid-19 forced officials to drastically downsize the event.

The original wooden statue was brought to the Philippines in the early 1600s when the nation was a Spanish colony.

Many Filipinos believe it got its dark colour after surviving a fire aboard a ship en route from Mexico.

– Hundreds get medical treatment –

Marites Rote credited the Black Nazarene with healing her children’s skin rashes nearly 40 years ago and, more recently, ensuring the family could pay her husband’s medical bills.

“When my husband got sick we were penniless, but because of the Nazarene we were able to provide for his needs,” Rote, 60, told AFP.

Authorities did not report any specific threat to the procession, but took the precaution of blocking mobile phone signals to prevent the remote detonation of explosive devices, and imposed a no-fly and no-sail zone near the route.  

First-aid stations lined the streets on Tuesday to treat people suffering from heat stroke, abrasions or other medical problems during the procession, which in previous years has taken up to 22 hours to finish due to the huge crowds.

More than 380 people had received medical assistance by late morning, the Philippine Red Cross said on Facebook.   

Some devotees collapsed and had to be carried out on stretchers or passed over the heads of other pilgrims. 

This year, the icon has been placed in a glass case for the first time and participants were banned from getting on the float — though some ignored the directive in their desperation to wipe a towel on the glass in the hope of receiving a miracle.

During the frenzied parade one of two ropes used to pull the float broke.

Tonton Ruz, one of the guards protecting the statue as it makes its slow journey, said Thursday he was happy the parade had resumed, but hoped it would be “more peaceful” than in the past. 

“Before, you can’t see him (the statue) with so many people on top of the float blocking the view,” Ruz, 36, told AFP as he prepared for the march.

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Dog meat has long been a part of South Korean cuisine, and at one point up to a million dogs were killed for the trade every year, according to activists. But consumption has sharply declined recently as Koreans embrace pet ownership in droves.

Eating dog meat is a taboo among younger, urban South Koreans, and pressure on the government to outlaw the practice from animal rights activists has been mounting.

Official support for a ban has grown under President Yoon Suk Yeol, a self-professed animal lover who has adopted several stray dogs and cats with First Lady Kim Keon-hee — who is herself a vocal critic of dog meat consumption.

The bill, which was proposed by both the ruling and main opposition parties, was passed unanimously by a 208-0 vote. 

It will come into effect following a three-year grace period after it receives final approval from Yoon.

Under the law, breeding, selling and slaughtering dogs for their meat will be punishable by up to three years in prison or 30 million won ($23,000) in fines.

“Now there is no longer any justification for being criticised as a ‘dog-eating country’,” said Thae Yong-ho, a ruling People Power Party lawmaker who proposed the bill.

“The ruling and opposition parties and the government must now take the lead in protecting… animal rights,” he said in a statement.

– Historic bill –

Activists also welcomed the bill, saying it was “history in the making”.

“We reached a tipping point where most Korean citizens reject eating dogs and want to see this suffering consigned to the history books,” JungAh Chae, executive director of Humane Society International/Korea, said in a statement.

“Today our policymakers have acted decisively to make that a reality,” she said.

“While my heart breaks for all the millions of dogs for whom this change has come too late, I am overjoyed that South Korea can now close this miserable chapter in our history and embrace a dog friendly future.”

In a survey released on Monday by Seoul-based think tank Animal Welfare Awareness, Research, and Education, nine out of 10 people in South Korea said they would not eat dog meat in the future.

Tuesday’s vote was a pioneering decision globally, said activist group Animal Liberation Wave, adding it would pave the way for protecting the rights of other animals.

“The journey towards a ‘dog meat-free Republic of Korea’ can be a starting point for not only liberating dogs, but also presenting different standards and a future for other species of animals that are subject to industrial exploitation, such as cows, pigs, and chickens,” it said in a statement.

Previous efforts to ban dog meat have run into fierce opposition from farmers who breed dogs for consumption. The new law will provide compensation so that businesses can move out of the trade.

Around 1,100 dog farms breed hundreds of thousands of dogs each year that are served in restaurants across the country, according to government figures.

Dog meat is usually eaten in South Korea as a summertime delicacy, with the greasy red meat — invariably boiled for tenderness — believed to increase energy to help handle the heat.

The country’s current animal protection law is intended mainly to prevent the cruel slaughter of dogs and cats, but does not ban consumption itself.

Nonetheless, authorities have invoked the law and other hygiene regulations to crack down on dog farms and restaurants ahead of international events such as the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.

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It’s also expected that Trump-side politicians will pressure the Fed. Regardless of why rates were raised in the first place, this is an election year. The theory is that rate cuts will be a plus for Biden. So rates stay high, and Biden can be blamed for high rates.

This has nothing to do with reality.

Reality wasn’t invited.

Higher rates were inevitable. Trump said in 2019 that he wanted rates at zero. These are charity rates for big borrowers who then give retail credit at credit card rates, which aren’t exactly zero.

Any moron could make big money on those terms, and a lot of morons have. They’ve also cranked up prices for food and rent for the last nearly two years.

What’s moronic is that these rises and tantrum-based economics effectively devalue money. Your money buys less. Bills increase. The entire economy is subject to these bizarre whims.

The Fed doesn’t and can’t work like that. Those rates bring in money to help with government debt and expenditures. The Trump side are the ones who think debt and expenditure are critical. The fact that their guy Trump caused the biggest increase in US debt ever isn’t a topic for discussion.

The demand for money to pay debt and not destroy the entire global credit system isn’t negotiable. The US needs the money. It’d need a lot less money if these idiot savants of fiscal restraint paid taxes, but that’s hardly news.

The hysteria is less excusable. Check out this link on the history of US interest rates. See the percentages. At the absolute top, now, we’re talking about 5%. Interest rates in the real economy, the one you eat and pay bills in, are a lot higher.

When interest rates were lower, many depositors didn’t get any interest. That drained a lot of income for some people who thought they could survive on those rates.

Mortgages on fixed rates are usually ballpark for something like the 5% figure. We’re talking about levels of personal financial commitment and obligations. That’s not a topic, either.

The USA recently lost its AAA credit rating thanks to endless government spending “debates”. Cut spending, they say. OK – How about no new defense contracts, etc.? That’d cut spending, a lot. They normally prefer to cut social security.

The US bond market is now looking very menacing. A lot of money, meaning a lot of billions, is piling into that market. It’s been a 100% predictor of recessions, and those patterns of bond behavior are forming again. Bonds are debt issued by governments and businesses. The rates they pay must be good to be competitive and receive money from investors. So, rates rise.

This is a political and business culture that is effectively illiterate. If you borrow, you have to pay. If you lend, you have to receive interest of more than zero. How does anyone not know that?

For more avoidable disasters, contact your smiling local political ignoramuses.

_________________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

The post Op-Ed: Interest rates and US politics – A terrible mix appeared first on Digital Journal.

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s current vice president, said voters should have no illusions about China maintaining peace, but that he would keep the door open for exchanges with Beijing if he takes power.

Saturday’s election will be closely watched from Beijing to Washington as voters choose a new leader to steer the island in the face of an increasingly assertive Beijing.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, rejecting the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s stance that the island is “already independent”. 

Beijing has maintained a near-daily military presence around Taiwan — with four Chinese balloons moving across the sensitive median line on Monday, the latest in a series of incursions that Taiwan and conflict experts say is a form of “grey zone” harassment.

Lai said that while China interferes in “every election in Taiwan”, the latest efforts are the “most serious”.

“In addition to political and military intimidation, (it is using) economic means, cognitive warfare, disinformation, threats and incentives,” he told reporters.

“It has resorted to all means to interfere with this election.”

– Hong Kong warning –

President Tsai Ing-wen, who is leaving office after reaching the two-term limit, won a landslide in the last election in 2020.

She was carried to victory by the Taiwan public’s fears of becoming like Hong Kong, which had seen Beijing crack down on dissent by implementing a national security law after city-wide protests for greater freedoms.

Under her administration, Beijing has refused all high-level communications with Tsai and ramped up political and military pressures against Taiwan. 

Lai said Tuesday that “as long as there is parity and dignity, Taiwan’s door will always be open” for exchanges and cooperation with China under his leadership.

“But we cannot have illusions about peace. Accepting China’s ‘one-China’ principle is not true peace,” he said, referring to a Beijing doctrine that Taiwan is a part of China. 

“Peace without sovereignty is just like Hong Kong. It is a false peace.”

Touting deterrence as a main defence policy, Lai said the DPP’s “pursuit of peace relies on strength, not on the goodwill of the aggressor”. 

“The goodwill of invaders cannot be relied on — if you look at Tibet and Xinjiang in the past, or Hong Kong today, these are all good examples,” Lai said. 

His opponents on Saturday include Hou Yu-ih, a former police officer and mayor with the Kuomintang (KMT) party, which has long encouraged closer cooperation and compromise with China.

Hou has said that Lai — who has previously dubbed himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan’s independence” — represents a danger to cross-strait relations.

The post Taiwan poll frontrunner hits out at Beijing ‘interference’ appeared first on Digital Journal.

The visit comes as the Israeli military said its campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was shifting into a new phase involving more targeted operations in the territory’s centre and south.

Sirens warning of incoming rockets sounded in central and southern Israel on Monday, as well as near the border with Lebanon, where Israeli strikes and tit-for-tat exchanges of fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants have raised fears the war could spread north.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah announced the killing of a “commander” for the first time since October, naming him as Wissam Hassan Tawil.

A security official in Lebanon, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tawil “had a leading role in managing Hezbollah’s operations in the south”, and was killed there by an Israeli strike.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah “military sites” in Lebanon on Monday, but did not immediately comment on Tawil’s death.

His was the second high-profile killing in Lebanon this month, following a strike in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut that resulted in the death of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri.

On Monday the Israeli army also said it had killed a “central” Hamas figure in Syria, Hassan Akasha, who had led “terrorist cells which fired rockets… toward Israeli territory”.

The October 7 attack by Hamas that triggered the war resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Fighters also took around 250 hostages that day, 132 of whom remain captive, Israel says. Of those, at least 25 are believed to have been killed.

Israel has responded with relentless bombardments and a ground invasion that have killed at least 23,084 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The Israeli army announced early Tuesday the deaths of four more soldiers, taking the number killed since its ground invasion began to 180.

– Crisis visit –

The repeated strikes in Lebanon and Syria, attacks against US forces in Iraq, and a campaign against shipping in the Red Sea by Yemeni rebels sympathetic to Hamas have all contributed to fears the Middle East could be dragged into all-out war.

In a bid to stave off that possibility, Blinken touched down in Tel Aviv late Monday after stops in six other countries in his fourth crisis visit to the Middle East since the war began.

The secretary of state was scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials, as well as war cabinet member and leading opposition figure Benny Gantz.

The war has displaced most of Gaza’s population, according to the United Nations, and left civilians at risk of famine and disease, the WHO says.

With only minimal aid entering the besieged territory, Israeli rights group B’Tselem on Monday said “everyone in Gaza is going hungry” as “direct results of Israel’s declared policy”.

It was joined by the US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which condemned in a statement Washington’s support of the “far-right Israeli government’s declared policy of starvation”.

The United States has said Blinken will press Israel on its compliance with international humanitarian law and ask for “immediate measures” to boost aid to Gaza.

– New phase –

As Israel’s main ally and arms supplier, Washington has grown increasingly concerned over the war’s civilian death toll, with President Joe Biden noting in a campaign speech Monday that he had been “quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce” their troop presence in Gaza.

The comments came as the Israeli army said its war in the territory was entering a new phase. 

Speaking to the New York Times, army spokesman Daniel Hagari said there would be “no ceremony” to mark the transition, but that the next phase would involve fewer soldiers and air strikes, adding the troop reduction began this month.

Hagari alluded to the transition in his nightly briefing on Monday, and described a shift in focus away from Gaza’s devastated north.

“While there are still terrorists and weapons in the north, they are no longer functioning within an organised military framework,” he said.

Meanwhile, there were “hard battles being fought both in the centre and the south” of Gaza, he added.

Earlier in the day, the military showed journalists what Hagari described as a cluster of weapons factories and tunnels in central Gaza that looked like industrial facilities, but which he said were in fact used to produce missiles and shells.

– Journalists killed –

The United Nations on Monday said it was “very concerned by the high death toll of media workers”, a day after the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network said an Israeli strike had killed two of its journalists, including the son of Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh.

In the southern border town of Rafah, another strike on Monday killed two of Dahdouh’s nephews. 

Dahdouh was recently wounded himself in a strike that killed his cameraman, having already lost his wife and two other children in an Israeli bombardment in the initial weeks of the war.

“They say Rafah is safe, but we don’t see it is safe in Rafah. No place is safe,” said Mohammad Hejazy, overlooking the blood-soaked road.

The UN rights office called for all journalist deaths to be “thoroughly and independently investigated”.

Violence against Palestinians has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli police confirmed three people were killed late Monday during a raid on Tulkarem to arrest a “wanted terrorist”. 

Israeli forces and settler attacks in the West Bank since October 7 have killed at least 333 people, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry.

The post Top US diplomat to meet Israeli PM as fears of escalation rise appeared first on Digital Journal.

Streaming series “Echo,” which launches on Disney+ and Hulu on Tuesday, tells the story of Maya Lopez, a tough former villain who returns from a life of criminality in New York to rediscover her Indigenous roots in her Oklahoma hometown. 

Much of the dialogue takes place through sign language, with subtitles, and filmmakers worked closely with Choctaw Nation leaders to create authentic scenes, including a flashback to a sporting festival in pre-European contact America.

“I’m just so proud to be able to represent a platform that is uplifting voices for Indigenous people… we’re doing it the right way,” star Alaqua Cox — who is herself deaf, Indigenous and an amputee — told a recent press conference.

But the series comes at a delicate time for Disney, whose Marvel superhero films have struggled recently at the box office after over a decade of global domination.

Last year, for the first time since 2016, Disney was not the highest-grossing studio in Hollywood, pipped by Universal.

Simultaneously, the company has found itself at the heart of the US culture wars, attacked by right-wing commentators and Republican politicians for becoming “too woke” in its storytelling.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a presidential hopeful, has pounced upon complaints about the increasing prevalence of gay and nonbinary characters in Disney films, from “Lightyear” to “Elemental.”

At a conference talk in November, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the company’s storytellers had become overly concerned about introducing “positive messages,” and had “lost sight of what their number one objective needed to be.”

“What I’ve really tried to do is to return to our roots, which is remember we have to entertain first. It’s not about messages,” said Iger.

– ‘Frustration’ –

With its diverse casting, “Echo” represents the culmination of a trend for Disney.

The Marvel superhero films launched in 2008 with “Iron Man,” starring Robert Downey Jr.

It would take until the series’ 18th movie, “Black Panther,” that a solo lead character was not a white man.

Since then, there have been a plethora of diverse leads, even as box office returns have dipped.

But Bethany Lacina, an assistant professor at University of Rochester who has studied audience demographics, said there is no evidence to suggest the trends are linked.

Disney’s casting decisions “are moving their movies closer to what their audience has always been,” especially as young Americans become more diverse, she said.

“Non-white people are more likely to watch Marvel films than white people. Particularly Black people and white Hispanics,” she said.

Lacina suggested Iger’s comments may reflect “frustration” that simply casting non-traditional leads had not automatically brought in vast untapped minority audiences, as hoped.

Still, there is no evidence of a “backlash” from white viewers, who flocked to films like the Oscar-nominated “Black Panther” — a film singled out for praise by Iger at his November talk for “fostering acceptance.” 

Instead many analysts suggest Disney has simply produced too much content, including a dozen Marvel TV series, leading to what has been dubbed “superhero fatigue” as well as a perceived decline in quality.

– ‘Legacy heroes’ –

Marvel’s shift toward more diverse superheroes stems from both commercial strategy, and the history of the source comic books themselves, according to Nick Carnes, editor of “The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

“If you look at the legacy heroes, the oldest characters that have generations of nostalgia, they are disproportionately white and male,” said Carnes, a Duke University professor.

Disney’s entire Marvel project is “taking people who like a story about Iron Man or Spider Man, and then exposing them to characters who are different,” he said.

According to Carnes, Iger’s comments could simply reflect “a time when it is very fraught and very challenging to be a leader who engages with politics.”

The success or failure of “Echo” will still rest on the storytelling, he said.

“And at the end of the day, we’re all human beings,” said cast member Chaske Spencer, of Lakota Sioux origin.

“What it relates to is emotion… all of us can relate to that.”

The post Disney debuts deaf Native superhero as ‘woke’ debate swirls appeared first on Digital Journal.

The cost of a liter of regular gasoline will rise from 25 pesos (20 US cents) to 132 pesos, while the price of premium gasoline will jump from 30 to 156 pesos, Minister of Finance and Prices Vladimir Regueiro said on state television.

Authorities also said tourists to the struggling island nation will pay for fuel in foreign currency.

Cuba’s government, which subsidizes almost all essential goods and services, announced a series of measures in late December aimed at cutting the deficit at a time of severe economic crisis across the country.

According to official estimates, the Cuban economy shrank by two percent in 2023, while inflation has reached 30 percent.

Late last month Economy Minister Alejandro Gil acknowledged that the government could no longer sell fuel at “subsidized” prices, with the Communist-led country short of foreign currency and still under a punishing decades-long US embargo.

“The country can not maintain the price of fuel, which is the cheapest in the world compared to prices in other countries,” Gil said.

Cuban gasoline is “very cheap, but if you compare it with salaries in the country, gasoline is very expensive,” economic Omar Everleny Perez told AFP, adding that the new price structure will affect “the whole of society.”

The government on Monday also announced a 25 percent increase in electricity prices for major consumers in residential areas, as well has hikes in costs for natural gas.

It also said the Central Bank was studying a potential new exchange rate against the dollar. The peso has been devalued twice since 2021.

The island of 11 million people is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s, due to consequences of the pandemic, tightening of US sanctions in recent years, and structural weakness.

The post Budget-crunched Cuba to hike fuel prices over 500 percent appeared first on Digital Journal.

Beijing and Washington have butted heads in recent years on flashpoint issues from technology and trade to human rights, as well as tensions over Taiwan and competing claims in the South China Sea. 

In a bid to ease some of the worst tensions in decades, President Joe Biden met Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November for talks that both sides described as a qualified success.

And speaking at Beijing’s opulent Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on Tuesday, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi admitted relations had “encountered serious difficulties at the beginning of (last) year”.

The veteran diplomat said Beijing “expressed its solemn position, demanding that the United States change its misunderstanding of China and return to a rational and pragmatic China policy”.

“After hard work, the two sides have restructured communication and dialogue, and bilateral relations have stopped falling and stabilised,” Wang added.

But Wang’s rosy assessment belied continued key sources of tension between the powers.

Elections are due this week in the self-ruled island of Taiwan, a key flashpoint between the US and China.

Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out seizing it by force, while the United States is Taiwan’s main security backer and has warned China against acting aggressively towards the self-ruled island democracy.

The two sides have also clashed over China’s increasingly assertive policy in the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety despite an international tribunal ruling that its assertions have no legal basis.

Wang on Tuesday stressed that Biden had pledged to Xi that the US “does not support Taiwan independence” during their meeting last year.

He also framed China as a “responsible” power that “always held fast to justice and stood for fairness” as well as “resolutely opposes hegemonism and power politics”.

“The world today is by no means peaceful, and using power for bullying is extremely harmful,” Wang warned.

The post China’s top diplomat says ties with US ‘stabilised’ last year appeared first on Digital Journal.

The advances came as traders try to ascertain the Federal Reserve’s plans for interest rates this year, with focus firmly on the release this week of key inflation data.

The outlook was given a boost by Monday’s plunge in oil prices — a key driver of inflation — after Saudi Arabian giant Aramco announced a cut of $2 a barrel as it looks to regain lost market share.

Equities have stumbled into the new year as a rally at the end of 2023 came to an end on worries that investors may have been too optimistic that the Fed will slash interest rates as soon as March.

Confidence was given a jolt last week when minutes from the bank’s December policy meeting showed decision-makers were happy to keep rates at two-decade highs for some time to make sure they defeat inflation.

That was followed by a forecast-busting jobs report that showed the labour market remained in rude health, reinforcing the Fed view that there was still much work to do before officials could call mission accomplished.

Still, Fed governor Michelle Bowman said rates were at the level needed to bring inflation down to the bank’s two percent target.

“Should inflation continue to fall closer to our two percent goal over time, it will eventually become appropriate to begin the process of lowering our policy rate to prevent policy from becoming overly restrictive,” she said in prepared remarks at the South Carolina Bankers Association in Columbia. 

With eyes on the upcoming consumer price index figures, SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes said: “If current cooling estimates hold, the month-on-month increase is anticipated to be 0.3 percent, marking the slowest pace of annual core price growth since May 2021.

“This is expected to be perceived positively for risk markets, reinforcing the optimism for market-based rate cuts.”

On Wall Street, all three main indexes powered higher, with the Nasdaq up more than two percent.

And Asia picked up the baton, with Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney jumping more than one percent, while Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Manila and Wellington were also on the rise.

Oil prices edged up slightly but made little headway into the steep Monday losses that came after Aramco’s move, which fanned concerns that supply was far outstripping demand, particularly with China’s economy still struggling.

The commodity in 2023 suffered its first annual loss since Covid-ravaged 2020 as non-OPEC+ producers filled in for output lost through cuts by Riyadh and other members of the cartel.

Analysts said prices could be even lower if it was not for geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Bitcoin was sitting around $46,500, having broken $47,000 on Monday for the first time since April 2022 on bets US regulators will approve exchange-traded funds that invest directly in the cryptocurrency.

– Key figures around 0230 GMT – 

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.4 percent at 33,858.63 (break)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.1 percent at 16,402.12

Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 2,897.34

West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.3 percent at $71.01 per barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 0.5 percent at $76.46 per barrel

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 143.59 yen from 144.19 yen on Monday

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0961 from $1.0963

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2760 from $1.2740

Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.93 pence from 85.88 pence

New York – Dow: UP 0.6 percent at 37,683.01 (close)

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 7,694.19 (close)

The post Asian markets enjoy healthy bounce after Wall St rally appeared first on Digital Journal.

“For weeks I haven’t been able to reach the wheat I planted in November,” Ahmed al-Amin, 43, told AFP from his farm 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of state capital Wad Madani.

After war erupted in April last year between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Al-Jazira — just south of Khartoum — became a sanctuary for more than half a million people, according to the United Nations.

But the front line has been edging southwards for months, and in December the fragile peace in Al-Jazira was shattered.

The fight for Wad Madani began, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee from the state.

When the army quickly retreated from the state capital, the RSF took over swathes of agricultural land, laying siege to entire villages and leaving farmers unable to tend to vital crops.

Amin says his crops need water and fertiliser that he and other farmers in the area can no longer provide.

His farm is part of the Gezira agricultural scheme, an important irrigation project that is a key source of food for the northeast African country.

Local officials had announced plans in October to plant 600,000 acres of wheat — vital to fend off widespread hunger.

Most of its food is imported, and with a war-crippled economy and 5.8 million people displaced within the country, the spectre of famine has stalked Sudan for months.

– Widespread hunger –

According to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), nearly 18 million people are currently facing acute hunger, with five million at “emergency levels of hunger”.

Although a famine has not been officially declared, “there is no other way around what’s about to happen in Sudan”, according to Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) country director William Carter.

On Saturday, US agency USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network said “fighting in central and eastern Sudan, which is the country’s most important region for crop production, is a serious threat to national food availability”.

The NRC’s Carter is more direct.

“Unless peace magically descends on Sudan, there is going to be famine. At this point, it’s not just air strikes and urban warfare killing people,” he told AFP.

The fighting has killed more than 12,190 people, according to a conservative estimate from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

There are no figures for indirect casualties, including those who have died due to the nationwide breakdown of essential services, infrastructure and hospitals — 80 percent of which remain out of service.

All along the highway from Khartoum to Wad Madani, the RSF has set up checkpoints, seized land and besieged entire communities.

Kamel Saad, 55, saw this happen to his village, 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of Wad Madani.

He had just begun to collect his vegetable crop — on which he had spent his life savings — in a last-ditch effort to make it through this year’s harvest season.

“My crop rotted because of the RSF deployment on the road,” Saad told AFP. He now has nothing left to his name.

– Rotting crops –

Others were lucky enough to have gathered in their harvest before the tanks arrived. But now they have nowhere to take their produce.

At this time of year, markets across the state would usually be teeming with farmers and merchants moving their crops, feeding millions.

Now most of these markets are abandoned, looted or closed for fear of attack.

According to officials, local activists and farmers, the RSF fighters have left nearly nothing untouched in their wake.

In a statement, Gezira scheme head Omar Marzouk said “the project’s cars and machinery have been looted and workers in every department are unable to reach their work”.

Last month, the WFP said paramilitary fighters looted its warehouse in Al-Jazira, stealing “enough stocks to feed nearly 1.5 million severely food insecure people for one month”.

By the end of December, “300 cars and farm vehicles” had been looted from the Junaid project on the east bank of the Nile, according to project head Mohamed Gad al-Rabb.

Fertiliser and pesticide warehouses stood empty, their contents looted, and water pumps came to a halt.

“Already we hadn’t been paid our profits from the government for two years. Now the water pumps have stopped and our crops are at risk of rotting,” farmer Khader Abbas told AFP.

Sudan was already suffering before the war, with triple-digit inflation and a third of the population needing humanitarian aid.

Now, as the fighting spreads southeast, local experts have warned that the damage to the country’s agriculture sector could cripple its food security for years to come.

The post Harvest lost as war expands in famine-threatened Sudan appeared first on Digital Journal.